I have been talking to a girl named Courtney and we have been trying for a couple of weeks to meet up but so far we haven’t been able to make that happen. Typically when responding to a text message with an iphone it will offer some suggestions to make texting faster and easier and the suggestions are usually generic. Recently I got a text from Courtney asking if I wanted to meet up downtown. I looked at what my phone was suggesting what I should respond with and I saw: a winky face emoji, a smiley face emoji, and LOL!

At first i was shocked and was wondering how my phone knows that I am into her in that way. Is my phone reading our text messages? Which seems like an invasion of privacy. If my phone is able to read our text messages, is it thinking ‘I’ve seen your bad attempts at flirting on here, now let me take a shot at this’. Is my phone trying to be my wingman? If so, I am not totally oppose to it, but usually when you’re looking for dating advice you want to go to someone with more experience or more success in dating. My concern is if I were to use the iphone’s third suggestion of ‘LOL!,’ to her wanting to meet up, would send mixed signals.

I met up with Courtney and a couple of her friends downtown and had a good time. I sent her a text the next day and as I was texting I started to notice some of the words that my phone was suggesting I say to her. My phone wanted me to tell her that she looked stunning and that I love her. I like my phone’s enthusiasm, but I feel like it needs to take it down a notch. In the span of a day it went from wanting me to use poorly timed emojis and LOL!s, to wanting me to say I love you to someone I have known for a couple of weeks. Definitely want to see Courtney again, but I am starting to think that if it doesn’t workout my phone might take it harder than me

If the iphone has the capability of being a wingman and can help guys out with relationships, then Apple should advertise this feature. Lonely and frustrated guys are overpaying for relationship coaches, and could seriously cut cost by simply getting an iphone.

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I am getting a little bit older now and I have gone through many phases over the years but one thing that has remained relatively constant over the years is my love for Batman. I may loose interest from time to time, but whether it’s through the TV show, comics, cartoons or movies; I always find myself coming back to Batman. One thing that I have always taken for granted but now strikes me as odd is how involved Commissioner Gordon is with every case.

When I think about high-ranking police officers like Captains and Commissioners I typically think of someone who works behind a desk and mostly does administrative work. When they do take an interest in a case its usually to suspend the loose cannon detective for going to far, which result in said detective slamming their badge on his desk. Albeit most of my knowledge of law enforcement comes from television and movies, so maybe it is perfectly natural for a police commissioner to be at every crime scene

Its possible that some of the cops in Gotham see his constant presence at every crime scene and willingness to still do grunt police work as a morale booster, I also can’t help but to think that his presence might be a distraction. It has to be hard for officers and detectives of the Gotham city police department to effectively do their jobs with their boss constantly looking over their shoulder. Solving puzzles left behind by the Riddler are challenging enough on their own, but having to do it in front the Commissioner would add an unnecessary amount pressure.

I can’t help but to imagine that taking an interest in so many cases must distract him from his administrative duties, which after all is his job description. I wonder how many important meetings Commissioner Gordon has skipped over the years because the Two-Face was out causing mischief. Officers have to cringe every time a criminal, like the Joker for example, breaks out of Blackgate Prison or Arkham Asylum and goes on a murdering rampage as this will not only increase their work load but prevent the Commissioner from approving a new budget.

I am having a little trouble seeing the appeal of Mad Men. The show has been out for a while and won some awards, so I assumed based on its longevity and popularity that the show must be really good. A few months ago I decided to give chance and the first couple of episodes seemed kind of slow and dry so I convinced myself that it must pick up at some point and I gave it a couple more episodes. I watched episode after episode waiting for the good part to show up only to be disappointed when the good part never came.

It was weird how the show never really did pick up despite ample opportunities for the drama to build; only it seemed to dissolve before it ever went anywhere. Examples of disappointing drama include Don trying to get Pete fired but couldn’t because of how powerful Pete’s family was or Pete trying to black mail Don only to find out that no one cared about Don’s past.

Don Draper is clearly an anti-hero but if you put him next to other anti-heroes on television like Tony Soprano and Walter White, he quickly looks tame be comparison. When Don finds out that his girlfriend is in love with another man and simply walks away, I almost want to strip him of his anti-hero status. He comes across looking like one of one of the members of the Rat Pack that you have to Google after you name off Davis Jr, Sinatra, and Martin.

I will admit I enjoyed watching men on the show smoke and drink while occasionally sexually harassing the women in the office, basically doing all the things that made Don an anti-hero. Once I got past all that it felt like I was just watching people going to work. I suppose I should say don’t spoil any good parts after the first season, but if anything good happens after the first season go ahead and spoil it because I probably won’t watch it.

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As far back as I can remember I’ve always been a little self-conscious about how often I eat fast food. Thanks to the technological marvel that is online banking I am able to see how much money I spend and often I eat fast food. Before going through the drive thru of a fast food restaurant I usually make sure to throw away or at least hide any remaining trash from the last time I had fast food, to abate the impending stigma. For me this is particularly important when going through the Chick-fil-a drive thru’s as I tend to eat at Chick-fil-a about once a week. This was a full proof system until the unthinkable happened and the girl that worked at the Chick-fil-a drive thru recognized me a regular.

After about six months of going to Chick-fil-a regularly the girl who worked the drive thru at Chick-fil-a began to recognize me and she knew my regular order. Just being recognized as a fast food regular was shameful enough but the fact that she knew my regular order made me feel boring and predictable. Some times when I would pick up my order we would talk for a minute, and the conversation had enough tension to make kind of creepy as because she was so young.

With each trip to Chick-fil-a starting out with me feeling ashamed of my bad eating habits, then progressing to me feeling embarrassed about being boring and predictable and ended with me feeling kind of creepy, I’m not sure if it was possible to be more self conscious. Despite falling into a weekly shame spiral I was unwilling to give up Chick-fil-a, when an obvious solution presented itself; I started going to another Chick-fil-a. Going to a Chick-fil-a in another city was a little time consuming and costly but well worth it as I could eat my dinner with slightly less shame, until I realize how much effort I put into avoiding a young girl then I felt self conscious about that as well.

As far as having feelings for the Chick-fil-a drive thru girl goes, I don’t think that is entirely my fault, I think I have been conditioned to be attracted to girls at Chick-fil-a. Most of the Chick-fil-as where I am from in North Carolina hire mostly young white girls to work at the front of the restaurant. It wasn’t until I went to a few Chick-fil-as outside of North Carolina that I saw someone other than a young white girl working in the front of the restaurant, I am not sure if this makes North Carolina Chick-fil-as racist or sexist.

I recently noticed that the girl who recognized me and was the source of all the self-consciousness is no longer working there, and I can finally eat chicken without any kind of stigma. The day I learned that she no longer worked there I also learned that Chick-fil-a has taken their brownie off their menu. After losing the brownie I think I finaly can relate to Job from the Old Testament. God Gives and he takes away.

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I have done stand up in Austin a few times since moving to Texas, on of my favorite rooms to tell jokes is the Velveeta Room on Sixth street. As it is almost impossible to find a place to park on Sixth Street, I am typically forced to park at a garage a couple of blocks away. My route from the garage to the club is adjacent to a bus station, which is usually filled with homeless people, as homeless people typically love bus stations. I would like to believe that they are peaceful vagrants who have fallen on hard times, however seeing a couple of homeless people getting arrested outside of a dilapidated house across from the previously mentioned bus station made me think that they were a rather rambunctious sort.

My first time doing stand up in Austin I mentioned on stage that the first two or three people that talked to me that night were homeless people asking for money, and it made a weird first impression of Austin. After about the third time I was asked for money I began to wonder if anyone in this city has a job. When I finished my set I stepped out side, and was approached by another homeless person. I told him that I just did stand up and he proceeded to do about three minutes of jokes. It was not the most original material I’ve ever heard but I gave him a couple of dollars, as it was a pretty original way to preface a request for money.

One of the most interesting things I’ve seen in Texas regarding homeless people is in the city I currently live in, Killeen. Here on Sundays homeless people sell newspapers by the side of the road. While selling newspapers may provide homeless people with an opportunity to earn money, it seems to me that with all the struggles that print media has faced over that last few years using smelly and poorly dressed salesmen is extremely counter productive. There is a chance that they are not really homeless if some one is poorly dressed and standing a few feet from the road I consider them homeless.

Over the past few months I have noticed that most of the homeless people I have seen lately have signs that read ‘God Bless You’ or mention God in some other form or fashion. It has made me wonder why aren’t people from other religions losing their homes as well? It just seems odd that extreme poverty only affects one religion in particular.

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Lately I have found myself loosing sympathy for homeless people. I first began loosing sympathy for homeless a few months ago when I was robbed by a homeless man. I stopped at a gas station to get some gas, as soon as I got out of my car I was approached by a homeless asking me to give him a ride. I tried to use the same strategy that almost every girl who has turned me down for a date used, so I looked disinterested and told him I already have something planned.

He proved to be more persistent than I had anticipated, as he followed me from my car to the gas station, waited for me to prepay and followed me back to my car. I was very annoyed by his constant asking for a ride, the alarming point in the conversation was when the question of “Can I get ride?” evolved into “Can we get a ride?” At this point a second homeless person showed up, and my feelings of annoyance were soon replaced by feelings of intimidation and fear.

I don’t remember ever telling them that I would give them a ride but do remember being too afraid to tell them to get out of my car after they let themselves in. I also remember being too intimidated to tell them that I would prefer them not smoke in my car, rather I told them they could smoke as long as they rolled down their windows. I had forgotten that the windows in the back of my car are broke and don’t roll down, though this would not prove to be problematic for the homeless man riding in the back as he opted to ash in my back seat.

After a few minutes the homeless man riding in the front seat began to notice my nervousness and to his credit tried to make things a little more relaxing by starting up a conversation. As we were talking he asked me if I’ve ever eaten sushi, to which I replied no. As the conversation progressed I realized that “eating sushi,” for some, is a euphemism for oral sex. At first I was jealous that a homeless man was eating more exotic foods than me, later I became envious that a homeless man was experiencing a more interesting sex life than I was.

I was relieved to hear the homeless man in the front seat tell me that we were almost there; as we already passed the distance that we agreed on of just a little was down the street. When we arrived to our destination which turned out to be a pawn shop I was relieved to see our adventure come to an end, though that feeling of relief would soon be replaced by feelings of disappointment and violation when I realized that some of my CD cases were missing.

I haven’t lost sympathy for all homeless people. There is this one homeless man with an electric wheel chair that I see every once in a while, and I feel awful every time I see him. I don’t show my sensitive side very often, but I can’t help but to feel a little sympathetic every time I see him and its not just because he homeless and handicapped but I know it has to be frustrating owning an electric wheel chair without a home to charge it at.